Wrong then Right (A Love Happens Novel Book 2) (31 page)

This was who Ash had been waiting for.

Long seconds passed, the tension rolling off him in waves, and Beck waited in the crackling silence for one of two things to happen. Either there was going to be a soap opera-like slow run into each others open arms, or somebody was going to draw their weapon, firing off a kill shot before the other could.

Beck wasn’t a betting man, but if he had to lay odds, he was going with the gunfire.

But just as Ash moved his hand to the door handle, intending to prove Beck right or wrong on one or the other, the glowing brake lights of the convertible flickered off and the car rolled forward, continuing on its way toward the vineyard.

It all happened in less than two minutes,
Teenage Dream
still playing on the radio when the car drove away.

Ash’s eyes stayed glued to the rearview and the Jeep didn’t budge until the taillights disappeared completely. Once they were on their way again, it was as if the incident had never occurred.

“Brakes work,” Beck finally said, cutting the awkward silence. “Seat belts, too.” Adjusting the damn thing so he could breathe properly again, he added, “Safety first, right?”

Beck chuckled at his own joke and reached for his phone, returning multiple urgent texts from Sam. He was perfectly happy to let Ash work through
whatever the hell that was
on his own, because it was a long way back to San Diego when you were sitting next to a man on the brink. The brink of what exactly, Beck wasn’t entirely sure, but based on the emotion Ash was displaying—meaning something beyond his standard poker face—it was best to keep quiet or something was liable to get broken.

Rush hour traffic had come and gone hours ago, so the drive to the office downtown was a quick forty-five minutes, Beck checking for any Be High grand jury updates and coordinating with Grady on the Karachi detail, the very last place he wanted to be. He’d done his time there.

“She looked happy. She looked motherfucking happy.”

He glanced up from his phone, not sure who Ash was talking to. “What? Who?”

Tapping his thumb against the steering wheel a few times, Ash loosened his jaw and glanced over at him. “Hope. She looks happy.”

Beck shrugged, not sure where he was going with this.

Exiting off the interstate, Ash turned toward the high rise building where the Scorpio offices were located. “Keep it that way.”

“Will do,” Beck replied, as if it were that easy. As if he had that power.

Then he thought about her beautiful face and joyous smile. The way she looked at him with complete trust. With unabashed love. And he thought about his bottle of Crown Royal and his sudden, urgent, and allconsuming need to drink it. All of it. At once. And he would. On the fast approaching day when he told her to get out of his house and out of his life.

And then he thought about how good he’d gotten at lying to Ash.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Memory was a funny thing. You could recall the lyrics to every single Jimmy Buffett song without even trying, but you couldn’t remember what you ate for dinner last night.

It failed you when you hit the grocery store after working all day, needing only a can of Spagettio’s, diet Coke, Midol, and pimple cream. Yet you left the parking lot with four plastic bags full of everything but your precious zit zapper, including a noisy cellophane package of Nutter Butters, an impulse purchase that you’d dug into before putting the car in reverse.

But the memories stemming from childhood were different. They seemed to remain, both good and bad, as bits of sharp, technicolor snippets coming to you during the oddest times of your life. Warm, welcoming memories inspired by the pungent scent of burning leaves. Or the sight of a wooden porch swing. Or the sound of a baseball game, playing not on television, but a fuzzy transistor radio. But as with any good, eventually the bad had to show its ugly face, balancing out the scale of life. Hope knew she wasn’t special. Just like they did for many, the bad memories usually came to her mind rarely, and quite innocuously. With the trilling melody of a Canyon Wren, singing plaintively for its mate. The sight of a frazzled parent, grabbing the hand of their unruly child just a little too hard. The acrid smell of water when heated to scalding.

And as memory was prone to do, it altered your perspective of the here and now. It changed the way you thought. It made you throw away the whole loaf of bread when only one piece grew mold, sacrificing the taste of buttery delicious toast, simply because the heel turned on you.

The vineyard, while nestled on a little over one hundred acres in total, was smaller than her memory of it. The rows of vines weren’t as endless and the oak trees not as tall. The house wasn’t as imposing and the rooms inside not as large. And Marshall, the father she remembered as being a dark haired, larger than life man of great power and presence, was smaller, too.

But what was most surprising to Hope upon entering her father’s study, was not his beloved collection of hardcover books stacked haphazardly on dusty shelves, rather than their normal alphabetical placement, splines neatly upright. Or the paper-strewn desk sitting in the center of the room, an ancient computer dominating the surface, huge cords running every which way and sucking up an inordinate amount of electricity. Nor was it the blown up photograph hanging lopsidedly on the wall behind the desk, a gap-toothed Hope posing for the camera next to a brooding teenage Ash, taken so long ago Hope barely recognized them.

What shocked her, what sent a ribbon of guilty panic through her, was the narrow hospital bed tucked tightly against the wall, near the windows overlooking the western hillside, the Pacific Ocean a distant gray mass beyond the rolling rows of vines.

“Don’t worry, my sweet girl.” The hushed sound of his concerned voice came from behind, startling her. “I’ve still got a lot of living left to do.”

She didn’t turn around, too afraid to look. Not ready to see her father for what he was. What he’d become in the seven years she’d been gone. An old man.

“And a lot of sinning, too,” he continued, with a wry chuckle. “I can do all my repenting when I’m dead. Hell doesn’t want me and heaven won’t let me in, so it seems I’m in the clear, either direction.”

Spinning toward his voice, she saw him sitting in a wing back chair, wearing crisply pressed khaki’s, a starched golf shirt, and loafers with tassels. He looked ready and willing to play a round on the links course nearby, if you overlooked the puffy, pale complexion and hesitant movements as he stood. His hair was a trendy silvery gray, shot through with strands of coal black, and as thick as it had been the day she was born.

“Daddy...” Swallowing, she took a step toward him, feeling like a child again. Wanting love, seeking acceptance. But she stopped short, reminding herself why she was here. “Your plan got my attention, but I’m sorry to tell you it won’t work.”

Not expecting a warm and fuzzy greeting, he moved slowly toward the desk, but with more coordination than the walker near the hospital bed suggested. “You’re here, aren’t you? It’s where you belong. And I see you’ve brought some fine young men with you,” he said, his attention on the boxy computer monitor. “It’s good to know you’re being looked after.”

Hope glanced at the screen, seeing a crystal clear view of the foyer from a security camera set obscurely in a corner near the ceiling. She smiled when Beck noticed it immediately, his jaw hardening before he turned his back to it. Ash stopped prowling long enough to flash the camera his middle finger, somehow knowing he was being watched at that exact moment. It was such a petulant, adolescent boy thing to do, that it made her smile.

Marshall laughed at the obscene gesture, but it quickly turned to a dry, hacking cough. “My boy’s still got his spirit. No forgiveness or loyalty to be found, but spirit’s something.” He tapped his chest. “Does this old man’s worn out ticker good.”

Following her questioning glance at the hospital bed, he waved his hand, dismissing its significance. “Don’t pay any attention to that. Had an extra nip of scotch one night and tripped over these goddamn cords. Twisted my knee all to hell. Ever since, I’ve been treated like a senior citizen who can’t wipe his own ass or get through the day without taking several naps. It’s all for show and to make the women living in this house happy. Rosa’s always been the nurturing type and the other one’s the same. Hell, it’s clear as a bell to anybody looking she was born to be a wife and mother. Doing a damn fine job of it, too.” He looked at the camera feed again, as if the man with the one finger salute could hear him. “What a lovely waste.”

The hospital bed seemed like an extreme measure for a mere mishap with cords, and given the messy state of his normally pristine office, there was more to the story, but in light of recent events, Hope hardened her heart to his plight.

“What did you offer him, Daddy? Money? A job? A year’s supply of Chardonnay? Or did you sweet talk him into doing your dirty work like you did with Helen?”

Sitting down in his leather office chair, he slid a pair of reading glasses on, looking more like the man she knew. “My own daughter won’t return my calls. You left me no choice, but to take drastic action. What else would you have me do?”

“I’d have you treat me like an adult. Let me make my own decisions about who and what I want to be. Let me fall down and scrape my knees, then tell me to get the hell up because falling down is a part of life and I’m strong enough to handle it.”

“You’re my baby girl. You don’t need to fall down. That’s what I’m here for.” He looked at her over the top of his glasses. “There was a time when you were hurt far worse than a scraped knee and I wasn’t there to protect you. You had to get up on your own and that wasn’t right. I’m making up for that.”

“Stop with all the cryptic shit, okay? Stop telling me about things I don’t remember! Who cares, Daddy? I’m a woman, not a toddler,” she said, holding her arms up. “And you can see that I’m okay. Don’t manipulate me. Don’t make me feel guilty for leaving you. For leaving the vineyard. You don’t do that to Ash, so don’t do it to me.” She paused, the truth in her innocent words dawning on her for the first time.

“Oh, my God. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what this is about. Ash won’t come back because of what you’ve done to him and instead of owning up to it and making it right, making amends to him for his sake and the sake of the vineyard, you’re looking for an alternate. I’m your back up plan. You screwed one kid over so badly he won’t have anything to do with you, so you shuffle your other kid into the position. This isn’t because you want to spoil me or protect me. It isn’t because you love me.”

Shaking her head, she took a deep, calming breath. If she wanted him to treat her like an adult, she needed to speak like one. “You took something important from Ash. You took someone he loved away from him. You turned her against him. How is what you did to me any different? Val was my best friend, Daddy. My only friend. And he hurt me because you asked him to.”

If she thought her impassioned speech struck a cord, she was wrong.

“Then I chose well,” he said, grabbing a folder off the desk. Leaning back in the chair, his attention shifted to the contents. “There are four connecting guest suites in the upstairs north wing. They’re yours to remodel however you wish. Take some time to think about what starting position you want within the company. I meet with the board on Thursday and you can join me. It will be your introduction back into the fold.”

“I don’t need time to think.” She stood her ground, coming too far to back down now. “I’m sorry, Daddy. You can buy off all my friends and associates. You can take back all the money you’ve ever given me. You can do your best to get me fired from every job I ever hold. But I have plans for my life and nobody can stop me. Not even you.” She moved toward the door.

“I never took her away from him. He let her go,” he said, with hesitation. “He should’ve fought harder for her.”

Hope turned around, her heart breaking for Ash. “No, Marshall. He’s your son. You should’ve fought harder for him.”

She walked out before he could respond. Before he could defend his despicable actions as that of an overprotective parent. Before he could fool her into thinking Coleson Creek Winery held some kind of happiness for her. And before he could guilt her with familial obligations that, unlike Ash, she wasn’t cold enough to deflect.

An invisible weight had lifted from her shoulders in that moment.

Hope had left the vineyard more confident in her future than ever, feeling vastly relieved. No, she hadn’t received the parental admiration she’d been seeking her whole life, along with a reasonable explanation and his heartfelt apology for attempting to destroy her life. But she’d spoken from her heart and made her intentions clear. She accepted the reality that Marshall Coleson only held one thing deep in his heart and it wasn’t his children. It was his vineyard.

Seeing Rosa after so many years had been a balm to her piqued temper and bruised heart, though. Made her feel some of that tangible love and acceptance that Marshall was incapable of giving. But what had been nicer was leaving with her head held high, knowing she didn’t need a dime from him. Knowing she could pay for her education herself, without fear of repercussions, and she could live the life of her choosing. The vineyard would always be where she came from, but it wasn’t where she was going.

And right now, in the middle of the night and after working twelve hours straight on little more than caffeine and a convenience store hot dog, Hope was choosing to spend the next several hours of her life naked. Next to, on top of, and under, an equally naked Beckett Smith. Just as soon as she kicked his meddling ass, of course, which happened to be propped against the railing of his front porch, covered in jeans worn so thin, they molded his lean, muscled body in ways that should be illegal. It wasn’t unusual for him to be awake at one in the morning, but it was unusual for him to be waiting on the front porch, and her breath hitched in worry.

There was a legitimate possibility that he might not let her inside. That she might have overstayed her welcome.